Saturday, September 25, 2010

Betty Goodwin the great

How best to sum up Betty Goodwin’s impact on our visual culture? Put it this way: If you’re Canadian and have even the most casual interest in art, Goodwin’s work will loom large in your imagination, or more likely, will be seared into your psyche. Against all trend and fashion over the 60-plus years of her career, her devotion to the human figure — often locked in some kind of primal struggle, awash in her signature ochres and reds, blacks and deep, sooty greys — forged her a singular legacy in our world.